Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Well, now the holiday greetings are over and we move on to Otto, the Sciurumimus.

Otto is the dinosaur everyone (okay, some people in the palaeontological community) was talking about last year, with a near-perfect beautiful fossil of a juvenile. I thought at first it was probably Juravenator (which some people still believe); there was also talk about it being a new compsognathid or megalosauroid. Well now it's been described as Sciurumimus albersdoerferi (that's gonna talk a while to learn how to spell) and it is apparently a megalosauroid. But wait! A few people believe it is a coelurosaur. The most remarkable thing about the fossil is the feather-like filaments preserved. If it was a megalosauroid, it could be possible for megalosaurs to have feathers. I personally have no idea at this moment.

Oh, by the way, Louisiana is employing the Loch Ness monster to teach the kiddies that this means dinosaurs could still be alive! Perfect sense, of course.

(Even though most of the Nessie sightings come from a faked photograph taken in 1932)